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Kosciusko Upgrade On Tap For 2011

The Kosciusko Bridge may get a serious overhaul. Tribune Photo By Ira Cohen

By Andrew Moesel

When the government plans on demolishing the bridge that connects two of North America’s largest urban populations – Brooklyn and Queens – it’s not a matter to be taken lightly.

That sort of project takes time, planning, endless public meetings and all manners of engineering statements, drafts and drawings. Officials must consider traffic, the environment, building schedules and materials, historic preservation, cost and a multitude of other factors.

Even by these standards, however, it appears the Department of Transportation has pulled out all the stops with the Kosciusko Bridge project. The aging bridge – a six-lane, 1.1- mile, tightly-packed overpass that joins the B and Q on the BQE – has been plagued with maintenance problems for years and badly needs to be replaced or repaired, according to transportation officials.

Opened in 1939, the bridge was named after Taduesz Kosciusko, a Polish general in the American Revolutionary War. The two bridge towers are mounted with eagles, one a Polish Eagle and the other an American Eagle.

Officials began a public scoping process in 2002, meeting with local officials and residents to determine the important social, economic and environmental considerations involved in the project.

After several years of analysis, the DOT developed 26 different proposals to fix or replace the bridge (yes, 26!), representing every variation on different reconstruction and replacement alternatives. There were even three plans to replace the bridge with a tunnel.

A two-tiered filtering process narrowed down the initial proposals to a group of six. Five of the remaining plans essentially propose building new bridges on either side of the existing bridge, though some suggest tearing down and replacing the original structure while others would restore it. The last option recommends no construction, but simply continuing the aggressive maintenance program on the bridge.

The DOT will release its preliminary Environmental Impact Statement this fall, the document that “examines a full range of technical areas in order to identify and evaluate issues that are significant; eliminate issues that are not significant; and propose mitigation for significant impacts that are identified.”

When the report is released, another round of public meetings will follow early in 2007 to discuss the findings. A final EIS will then be issued later in the year, shortly after which the DOT will announce which proposal it ultimately selected.

No actual construction will begin on the project until 2011, according to the DOT Web site. In the interim period, the agency is conducting a $12 million rehabilitation of the bridges, superstructure and deck.